


The Stranger

by xanemarths



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 19:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17452985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanemarths/pseuds/xanemarths
Summary: Six months into his studies at Khadien, Merric meets someone rather odd.Surely, this is irrelevant, and they will not cross paths again.





	The Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I know the timeline might be a _little_ off, but I find the concept of Merric and Xane having interacted like... absolutely hilarious. Merric catches sight of the shapeshifter in Marth's army and just. squints. Wait a second.
> 
> Anyway, without further ado, an fanfic

It’s strange. Six months have passed since Merric first arrived at Khadien, all wide and starry-eyed, and yet - he can swear up and down that he’s never seen the man (woman? ...person?) currently perched up on the ledge of that circular window before.

Still, there’s something perfectly natural about them being here, as though they belong here, were always here. Perhaps he just hadn’t seen them before; Khadien is very large after all, and there are many, many students to fill its halls. Yes, that had to be it.

They seem to sense his presence as well; whether they'd only just noticed him, or had always known he was there and were only now choosing to acknowledge him was unclear. One of their eyes cracks open to stare at him - blood red, he realizes - and slowly, they raise themself from their warm and sunny window perch. (Watching them do so is almost unnatural; they seem to rise bonelessly, stretching like a cat. He swears they stare at him for a moment, swears he sees a pointed fang and a pointed ear and that their pupils are catlike slits, and then it all smooths over and he’s left to question what it is he really saw.)

Their legs swing over the sill, and suddenly they’re approaching him, a wide grin on their face that seems just slightly off kilter. “Well. Haven’t seen you ‘round before.”

Merric thinks that he could very well say the same for _them_ , but he doesn’t. “I’ve been here six months,” he says, instead, as neutrally as possible so it could either mean _I’ve been here long enough that you should have seen me already_ or _I’ve only been here a short time, and Khadien’s a big place._

The person’s grin twitches with amusement. “Aw,” they say, reaching out to mess with Merric’s (already messy) hair. “Thassa baby.”

Merric’s not sure what to make of this - this person’s lax familiarity, the vague condensation, the sense of something bubbling under all that outward cheer - but before he can manage a coherent thought on it, they start talking to him again. “So, what’re you here at Khadien for, anyways?”

“To study magic,” Merric tells them, barely restraining himself from tacking on a _duh_ at the end. He's wearing the robes of a mage, and Khadien hardly has other attractions besides the school. Most, if not all, of the people who lived in the city knew magic, had learned from the school.

Apparently, the other guy thought that was just as obvious of an answer. “I mean, yeah, _duh_. That's all Old Fart McGee teaches here. What _kind_ of magic, though?”

“Wind ma- did you just call the highly esteemed founder of this school _Old Fart McGee?_ ”

They shrug. “Yeah. That's what he _is_. Not like he can kick me out for makin’ jokes ‘bout him, anyways. I'm not here to _learn_.”

Merric grimaces, feeling offput both by the blatant lack of respect for authority and the apparent distaste for learning. “So… you're not a student, then?” he asks instead, tilting his head to the side. The person blinks, and then lets out a sharp bark of laughter.

“Ha! Me? No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, kid. I'm just Gotoh’s lackey. I run errands for the big guy, an’ that's it.”

An unsettling grin curls at the edges of their mouth, and Merric swears he can see fangs once more. “‘Sides. Why should I have to read stuffy ol’ books on magic, when, if I _really_ wanna do it-”

The strange smoothing over Merric swears he saw earlier happens again, this time with a few more colorful sparks and a seafoam-like fog, until the face he sees staring back at him is none other than his own. He yelps in shock and leaps backwards, nearly tripping over his own legs in an effort to escape what - whatever this thing was, that stood where the other person stood just seconds ago.

“Oh, nice, nice, very nice,” says the person in _his_ voice, patting _his_ body and moving _his_ muscles as though adjusting to the feel of it. They flex his fingers, and a spark of green flies to them, idly swirling around them. It dissipates almost as quickly as it had come, and for a moment, his doppelganger stares at where they'd been, their own grin dissipating just as the sparks of magic had.

“Huh. You're better at this then I thought,” they say, voice completely devoid of emotion and face almost unreadable. And then they shrug, and turn away. “Ah, well. Doesn't matter. We won't meet ever again. Still, nice to meet you, Merric.”

With that, they disappear in a sweep of his robes, and Merric is too stunned by them knowing his name when he never told them to realize that they're still shapeshifted into him until it's far too late, and they're already long gone.


End file.
